Recently Facebook® introduced the concept of a timeline where user information is organized according to when the information entered Facebook or based how a user links information to the timeline. Such an organization of information can be useful to the users by allowing them to review time-related events in their life. Unfortunately, the information stored in the Facebook timeline is inaccessible without Facebook and lacks any mechanism by which a user can be reminded of the information available.
Some effort has been directed to archiving information for later retrieval. For example, U.S. patent application 2004/0107270 to Stephens et al. titled “Method and System for Collaboration Recording”, filed Oct. 27, 2003, describes a system where collaboration sessions are archived. Such an approach is useful for collaboration in communication sessions. However, the Stephens system also fails to provide memory cues to individual users.
Effort has also been directed to recognizing objects. For example co-owned U.S. patents to Boncyk et al. U.S. Pat. No. 7,016,532 titled “Image capture and identification system and process” filed Nov. 5, 2001; U.S. Pat. No. 7,477,780 titled “Image capture and identification system and process” filed May 20, 2004; U.S. Pat. No. 7,680,324 titled “Use of image-derived information as search criteria for internet and other search engines” filed Aug. 15, 2005; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,565,008 titled “Data capture and identification system and process” filed Jan. 26, 2005, describe various aspects of recognizing objects and returning content information based on the recognized object. However, these patents also fail to provide insight into binding interesting events to a person's timeline.
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Ideally people or other entities could archive events and have mementos that can be used to recall the events. Thus, there is still a need for archival systems capable of triggering or restoring memories to users.